Gone Forever (Jack Widow Book 1), page 24
Sheldon probably hadn’t programmed her own name into her own phone. So, I thought for a second, and then I said, “Call back.”
The voice said, “Calling.”
Sheldon had been the last person to call this phone so that it would dial her number back. The phone rang, and she answered.
I said, “We’re too late. The main house is a wreck. There are signs of a struggle. Broken furniture and glass.”
“That doesn’t sound good.”
“Stay back. I’m headed to check the barn.”
I looked around the house quickly. There were no guns. I thought that unusual for a family of rednecks. I imagined that most had rifles perched across the top of the fireplace like trophies, but these people had none.
I shrugged and clicked off the Maglite and held it in my left hand. Then I pulled the CZ 52 out of my waistband and held it in my right and clicked the safety to fire and kept the muzzle facing downward. I had to be careful tramping through the house with a loaded, untested gun. Matlind had said that there were kids here.
I left the house and turned around the back corner. I saw the barn in the distance, over a hill, and around some trees. A gravel path led up to it. When I had driven in with Hank, it had looked closer to the house, but now I saw it was farther away. I moved along the path, making very little noise. Halfway down the path, I saw other houses that looked more like family-style dwellings. They had backyards with swing sets and animal pens.
I saw no signs of life.
I scrambled the rest of the way up the path and made it to the barn doors. They were shut. The barn was a two-story wooden building painted a red color that matched the brick on the house. Parked off to the side, near the trees, was another SUV. The lights were off, and the vehicle was empty.
I said, “Sheldon, get ready. We may have to move quickly.”
Her voice was crisp in the Bluetooth set. She asked, “Why? What’s wrong?”
I neared the barn doors. They were about twenty feet in front of me. I said, “The motion sensor lights. They aren’t coming on.”
I waved my left hand in the air to get their attention. The sensors clicked and rattled, but never came on—no bright lights. No sound. Just darkness. I switched on the Maglite and stared up at them.
“The bulbs have been shot out,” I said.
I saw bullet holes in the light casings. The motors whirred and sputtered and tried to switch the lights on, but nothing happened.
“There’s something else.”
She asked, “What?”
I shone the light across from me at the rear of the parked SUV.
“I’m staring at Grady’s truck.”
His Tahoe was parked right there in front of me. The light bar was as lifeless as the rest of the cold machine.
Sheldon said, “Oh, my God! Is he involved?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so.”
She asked, “What’s in the barn?”
I stayed quiet. I moved in closer to the doors. I left the Maglite’s beam on and scanned the door with it. Then I reached out and rapped on the door: not a loud knock, just a couple of moderate taps. No one answered. I put the Maglite underneath my arm, gripped it tightly in my armpit, and held the CZ 52 with the hand of the same arm. With my free hand, I reached out and grabbed the barn’s door handle and jerked it open. The door swung out. Next, I reached over and jerked the other one outward. It swung out easily. The two massive doors were light on their hinges.
I squinted my eyes, trying to adjust to the lack of light inside. Past the darkness, I saw several figures swaying high above me. I stood fast, burying my feet into the wet, muddy soil, and I jammed the gun outward, two-handed, ready to fire. The Maglite dropped out of my armpit and sunk into the mud.
I shouted, “Freeze! Freeze! Freeze!” I used a powerful cop voice, like before, only this time, loudness counted.
None of the men in front of me responded. I couldn’t make out any details from this distance, but it looked as though they kept on swaying.
I shouted, “Stay put! Stay put!” I dropped quickly to one knee and scooped up the muddy Maglite and lifted it and scanned the men inside. I counted more than a dozen. But I couldn’t tell who they were. I couldn’t see enough through the fog and darkness to tell if they were even armed. But I figured they were obeying my directives because no one shot at me.
I got up from my knees and moved in fast. I stepped inside the wide entrance, took a few strides into the barn, and then froze. Grady was there. So were the rednecks—the ones I had met in Matlind’s room. It looked like all the able-bodied men in town were there. The sheriff’s deputies. Lewis.
The air was filled with an awful stench. It was strong. I shone the light around the room and saw flasks, giant pots, and an expensive air filtration system. The rednecks had definitely been cooking meth here. Evidence of that was everywhere. It looked like I had caught them all red-handed. That was what it looked like, but that wasn’t what had actually happened. Not at all. Not by a long shot.
I slipped the gun back into my waistband and reached up to my ear and cupped it to block out any outside noises. I said, “Sheldon?”
“Yup. Did you find the women?”
“Nope. I found the rednecks and Grady. And his deputies.”
Silence fell over the connection. Then she asked, “You found them? So, Grady is involved?”
I said, “No, he’s dead. They’re all dead. They’re in the barn. Someone bound their hands and feet and hung them from the rafters.”
She paused and gasped. “They’re all dead? All of them?”
“Yes. Dead as anything. It was done recently.”
“I thought you said that Oskar Tega had just arrived. How could he have gotten here so fast?”
“He must’ve had help. Guys already here. He sent a guy into my jail cell to kill me. I thought he was a lone man—a hitman—but maybe Tega had a group here already. Maybe he had a kill team. They knew they were going to be coming here a week ago. I bet he had already sent guys here ahead, the day before the DEA raided his house in Mexico. The sheriff and the rednecks are casualties.”
She asked, “So the sheriff wasn’t in on it?”
“No. Neither were the rednecks. From the looks of this barn, they were busy with their own operation. Grady probably had stock in their meth business. I was wrong. Someone else was taking those girls. We’re looking at two separate operations. The rednecks dealt in meth, and Oskar Tega dealt in humans. That’s why Grady was reluctant to call in outsiders. He was protecting the rednecks. Everything must have gone sour between them.”
She was silent.
I looked at the dead faces. I said, “Tega is here, and now it’s time to clean up. That’s what he’s doing. His men killed these guys either to cover his true operation or to get rid of loose ends. I don’t know. Probably he wants the cops thinking he’s a drug dealer. That’s what has worked for him so far. He’ll be taking the girls international. We have to find them before that happens, or no one will ever see them again.”
Sheldon stayed quiet.
I walked out of the barn. I returned the CZ 52 into my waistband and lowered the Maglite. I stared off into the distance. “Where else could they be?” I asked.
From the main house, I hadn’t been able to see the lake, but now the fog was rolling out like a living creature, as if somewhere out there, a giant was inhaling it. It was now low to the ground. Some storm clouds still hovered in the air, but the thunder had quieted.
I stared across the lake, and my jaw dropped. I saw bright orange and red lights rising toward the sky. It was a fire. Across the lake, it roared and burned high above the buildings. Orange hues tornadoed up into the sky. Black smoke merged with the storm clouds. And then there was an explosion. The fire had reached a gas tank or a propane tank. The sound ripped across the horizon, and the blast burst upward in a horrifying ball of smoke and flame.
I looked on in horror as the fire consumed the Eckhart Medical Center. One thing came to mind. One condition burst into my head—asthma.
Faye Matlind had severe asthma.
47
The rain started again. It was slight—just a sprinkle. No thunder. No lightning. Just the raindrops. I stood there collecting my thoughts and lost track of time. It could have been a minute. It could have been fifteen.
I stared at the roaring fire across the lake. It grew and spread. It devoured the buildings in the Eckhart Medical Center and moved to the perimeter fence. Steel wires from the barbed wire fencing snapped, and the sharp sounds jetted across the water. The freed wires whipped up into the air and down again like the giant tentacles of some alien metal creature. The fire grew and roared and consumed everything in its path. A transformer exploded from the heat. Sparks of electricity fired into the night sky like a fireworks show with only one color—the sharp white flash of electricity.
I spoke into my earpiece. “Sheldon?”
She didn’t respond. Instead, a voice within earshot and with a thick Latin American accent said, “Mr. Widow.”
I turned to my left. My right hand went straight for the CZ 52. It came out fast, and I aimed it in the direction of three short men.
I’d been so distracted by the explosions across the lake and the thoughts of Faye Matlind’s asthmatic condition I hadn’t noticed them approaching. They got the drop on me—not an easy thing to do.
Careless, I thought to myself.
They saw the CZ 52 in my hand, but none of them reacted.
I didn’t fire.
The guys were dressed in black. Black jeans. Black rain slickers with hoods slung back. Their heads and faces were exposed, and the light rain misted down on them.
The guy in the middle, the one who had already spoken, said, “Toss the gun.”
An idiotic move for any man to make, even when he’s outgunned. If I obeyed, I was as good as dead. No way was I ridding myself of my only leverage. But there was one enormous factor to be considered—aside from the fact that two of the men were armed with FN P90s, excellent submachine guns. Accurate. Reliable. Deadly. The piece of leverage that they had over me was that the guy in the middle had a Five-Seven pistol in his hand, and it was pointed at Sheldon Eckhart’s head.
48
The three guys in front of me were Mexican. Short, wiry, and deadly. They had me dead to rights, and they knew it.
The sprinkle turned into a drizzle. Water trickled harmlessly from the sky in a kind of misty vapor. The wind blew, and the treetops swayed and sagged under the pressure, but the thunder and lightning had stopped.
The middle guy said, “I am Oskar Tega. You’re Mr. Widow.”
I wasn’t sure if he was asking me or merely stating a fact. So, I nodded.
Tega pushed the Five-Seven pistol closer to Sheldon’s head. The muzzle pressed into her skin.
“This is your woman?” he asked. He jerked her by the tuft of her hair, pulling her close to him. She let out a whimper. His lips moved inches from her ear.
I stayed quiet. I looked at the guy on the left-hand side, then the guy on the right-hand side, and then back to Tega. Oskar Tega wasn’t anything special. He was older than I had pictured. Maybe early fifties. His hair was black and gray and slicked back. Stubble had besieged his face. Earlier, I had thought he wore black, but I was wrong. He was dressed in a dark-green slicker. It looked black in the dark. From what I could tell, he was a thin guy. So were his friends.
I stared at Sheldon. I never lowered the CZ 52, even though I was pretty sure it was useless.
Sheldon said, “I’m sorry. They were going to kill me.”
Tega nodded and whipped her around and pointed the Five-Seven at her head.
“Toss the gun, Mr. Widow, or I kill her.”
Sheldon stared at me with tears in her eyes. She begged, “Please. They’ll kill me.”
I thought about salbutamol again. I thought about asthma, and I thought about Faye Matlind and her dead husband. And then I thought about Sheldon’s body. Immaculate. I pictured her in my mind, jogging around the lake. With a body like that, she must’ve run and exercised six, maybe seven days a week.
I kept my eyes open. Gun trained on Tega.
Asthma. Salbutamol. Faye Matlind.
Then, in a quick movement, I pointed the gun straight at Sheldon, center mass, and said, “Not if I kill her first.”
I squeezed the trigger.
Sheldon’s face turned white, but she didn’t close her eyes. She didn’t flinch.
The gun hammer fell back, and the empty air was filled with a snapping metallic sound like a mousetrap. It echoed into the trees and was lost in the distant sound of the roaring fire from across the lake. Nothing else happened. No gunshot. No bullet. Nothing. The gun hadn’t fired. I tossed it to the ground and dropped the Maglite. I didn’t raise my hands like a prisoner, but lowered them to my sides. Let them relax.
“You removed the firing pin,” I said. I shook my head and looked at the CZ 52 as it sank down in the grass and mud. I looked back up and said, “I knew the gun was a piece of shit. One thing about the CZ 52 is the easily removable firing pin. No way does a woman like you live here in this town, own a Remington shotgun, and not know anything about guns. You set me up. Probably led the sheriff here, too. But you probably could’ve just left the firing pin in that stupid gun. You could’ve left it alone. That shitty relic probably would’ve blown up in my hand.”
Sheldon’s eyes turned cold, and Tega released her from his grip. She stepped forward. She asked, “How did you know?”
I stared at her, emotionless, and said, “You met a man abroad? A benefactor?” Then I turned to Tega and said, “Tega, I wondered when you’d show your face. I thought for sure it would’ve been after we made it to the Medical Center.”
Tega asked, “Where?”
“The Eckhart Medical Center.”
He nodded, pointed the Five-Seven at my chest.
I said, “Sheldon works for you. She always has. That’s how you got so many girls. She’s the one who looked after them. They’d need a medical doctor to keep them healthy. To keep them sedated. To keep them calm. To keep them prime for your customers. And she was probably the one abducting them. I mean, who’s more trustworthy than a doctor? And a woman doctor? No one would suspect her.”
Sheldon said, “How did you know? When?”
I said, “The day I met you. In retrospect. But I was slow. Too slow. I liked you. I ignored my suspicions. You ran around the lake like an Olympic runner. In immaculate shape. Great body. You could compete nationally. But it was the salbutamol that gave you away. I saw you buying it.”
Tega cocked his head and looked at me questioningly. He tried to pronounce the word but couldn’t.
Sheldon said, “Salbutamol. It’s a medication for severe asthma.”
I asked, “Who would you be buying that for? Yourself? You don’t have asthma. No one with serious asthma could have a body like yours. No way! You fed me that bullshit that you were buying it for the clinic, but you only had one box. No, that medication was for someone in particular—a patient, but not one from this town. If it were a regular patient, then you would have bought a lot more. Might as well stock up on it instead of having to return to the store constantly and buy more.
“And you had all kinds of female products stacked up in your clinic. Boxes and boxes. Enough for an all-girl community. Who’s that for? The women who live here? No offense, but I’ve been around this town, and it’s a pretty boring place. No one here is having that much sex. You didn’t need it for anyone living here—you needed it for Tega’s girls.
“You needed salbutamol to treat Faye Matlind. She is real. I saw her medications in Chris Matlind’s motel room. She’s asthmatic. You had to take care of her. You were in-charge of taking care of all of them. Tega can’t use his stock if it’s dead or pregnant, can he?
“Plus, why does the Eckhart Medical Center need a barbed wire fence? Not because of animals. That place was surrounded like a prison because it is a prison.”
A devastating silence fell between us, like Sheldon and I were locked in time. Finally, I said, “You were my mom’s contact. She must’ve reached out to you. Being the local doctor and an outsider and a woman. She didn’t trust Grady. But she trusted you. How did she figure that? Did you know her?”
Sheldon shook her head. To be fair to her, there were signs of tears in her eyes—a symbol of remorse, but that didn’t affect me—not one bit.
She said, “Deveraux figured I might’ve seen something. She figured maybe I had knowledge of some man buying up supplies of medication. Like maybe a stranger was holding Ann Gables somewhere and needed feminine medications to keep her healthy.”
I nodded. It made sense. My mom had reached the same suspicion that I had. But what were the odds that she’d reach out to the one person who was a part of it?
Tega interrupted. “So, you figured it all out. You know why I’m here?”
I said, “You’re here to pick up your human stock. You aren’t into drugs. That’s all smoke and mirrors to keep the cops guessing. You deal in sex slaves. You’re scum. The lowest of the low. I’ll admit that at first, I thought the rednecks were keeping the girls, but you’re too smart to trust a bunch of rednecks. They aren’t the best at keeping secrets. If one of them got caught, they’d roll on you the first chance they got. But you bought drugs from them. They cooked your meth—meth that Sheldon used to keep the girls tweaking.
“I’m guessing they’re already loaded on your seaplane. And they’re tweaked out of their minds. Probably have no idea what day it is, let alone where they are or what’s happening to them. “You used Sheldon to take care of the girls for you. You trusted her. And who can you trust more than a doctor?”
Silence fell across us. No one spoke for a long moment, and then Tega said, “Good for you. You got it. For a gringo, you’re quite smart.”
Sheldon looked away for a moment, and then she looked back at me. It was a cold, uncaring stare.
Tega moved his finger into the Five-Seven’s trigger housing.
